Weekly Photo Challenge: Balance

Posted by Jenn Mishra on November 23, 2018 in Cityscape, Cuba, Landscape, Local Travel, Nature & Wildlife, Photography, Portraits, Weekly Photo Challenge |20 Comments

I recently published an ebook on a symbol that helps me lead a well-balanced life. The symbol was the cairn – a man-made stack of stones that provides navigation on hikes. I talked a lot about how the symbol of these stacks reminds me to balance my life.

This week, the theme is to:

Photograph Balance

This week’s challenge is an opportunity to look for balance in your life. This balance can be symbolic or actual balance. The cairns are really both. Stones literally balanced on top of each other, but also a symbol of balance in my life.

Southern Illinois (121 of 296) Reduce Size 5MB

Cairns speak to me of balance, but there are many other examples of balance in our lives. This dancer is perfectly balanced on her toes. It doesn’t matter that she only balanced there for a brief moment while I took this photo.

Brianna balances on her toes for this image.

You could take a photographic approach to this challenge. Photographers often talk about balancing their image. This means that something visually heavy on one side of the frame needs something on the other side of the frame of equal equivalent weight.

This image of a man from Trinidad wouldn’t work quite so well if his friend wasn’t balancing the frame. Looking in the opposite directions also helps as well.

This image of a man from Trinidad posing for a photo is balanced by his friend. It helps that the two men are wearing similar colors against the orange background and that his friend is looking away from the camera – the opposite direction.

Balance doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing needs to be on both sides of the frame, just something of equal visual weight balancing the visual scales. The tree in this image balances the red barn.

Barn on the Colorado plains is balanced by the tree and shadows.

Anything defying gravity with a chance of tipping over will work for this challenge. Within balance there is a weightlessness and ease that comes with defying gravity.

Riding a bike is a perfect example of balance and there are a lot of other activities (sports, yoga, balancing a ball on your nose, etc.) that show physical balance in action. Athletes, acrobats, and dancers often show their ability to keep their balance when the rest of us would simply fall over! Their feats of balance are awe-inspiring.

Balance is integral to many sports such as bike riding.

Art can also be about balance. Calder’s Flamingo in Chicago always strikes me as heavy and graceful all at the same time.

Chicago May Night-141 Reduce Size 5MB

Balancing on the head of a pin is a saying that means a difficult feat – one courting disaster. We admire those who can balance and we are amazed when we find balance in nature. This week is the opportunity to look for these awe-inspiring moments or find the balance in our everyday life.

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Share your posts in the Comments below or share with the tag #photoyogabalance for a chance to have your photo featured on PhotoYoga.

My ebook Cairns: Symbols of a Well-Balanced Life is available on Kindle.

I’m using my Random Inspiration Generator to choose the challenge each week. Use it if you want more frequent inspirations!

This post is sponsored by PhotoYoga.

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20 Comments

brenda says:

November 23, 2018 at 8:59 am

Good Day Jenn. I do enjoy your photo challenges. The new WP editing has created a sense of imbalance in my muscle memory. Here is hoping that there was a seven of balance between what I wished to do and what was actually accomplished. 🙂

https://ameditativejourney.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/reflections-2/

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- Jenn Mishra says:
  
  November 23, 2018 at 11:34 am
  
  Thanks! I’ve just started using the new editing program. Some good things and some more challenging!
  
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robert20359 says:

November 23, 2018 at 11:55 am

hi jenn, interesting and different photos for the week theme, I especially like the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, here is my post, https://wp.me/p2AvI7-2WT.
greetings robert

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Tatiana says:

November 23, 2018 at 2:39 pm

Super nice and “balanced” photos!
Here is my first contribution: Everything is possible when you think it is…
http://www.travelartpix.com/everything-is-possible-when-you-think-it-is/

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Debbie Smyth says:

November 24, 2018 at 11:33 am

A good pic to get us all thinking. I loved you ride range of interpretations.
I went with physical balance and agility in the end: https://travelwithintent.com/2018/11/24/giraffe-agility/

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bushboy says:

November 26, 2018 at 5:42 am

Love the first photo and the range of photos to get the thinking going.
I went with sculptures
http://bushboy.blog/2018/11/26/balance-sculptures-by-the-sea/

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